Blog Archive

Friday, 22 July 2016

It's been an interesting experience on Blogspot, however, I've finally migrated my novel to a new home; you'll be able to find it courtesy of WordPress. Overall I think it works better for both longer text posts and for serializing a novel, and visually I think it looks cleaner and more polished.

Most importantly, and this probably means more to me than anyone else reading this, no more hyperlinks! Honestly hyperlinks were the bane of my existence every time I had to upload a new segment, and coupled with splitting each chapter into two parts, it became a needlessly long-winded and dull experience.

If you have been reading my novel so far thank you for your time and please continue the journey with me on WordPress; I promise it's a very easy commute.

Sunday, 3 July 2016

In this episode of The Milo and Moose Show, Milo and Moose are joined by their good friend Dan to discuss artificial intelligence and related technology.

They begin by discussing "the singularity", or the point at which artificial intelligence exponentially surpasses human intelligence, before Dan shares an impromptu review of Independence Day. After this they discuss how we might hope to both identify and define AI, before looking at how AI might be both understood and misunderstood through the lens of evolution.

They finish with an obligatory discussion about the ultimate tech dream of being able to download knowledge, as well as musing on the impact technology could have on capitalism.

It's a big episode, one of the biggest they have done to date, which is fitting as this will be the last episode for a while. Keep tabs on their Soundcloud, Twitter and blog for future updates on their eventual return.

Milo, Moose and Dan out.

P.S. There was a lot of unexpected background noise and interference in this episode, so apologies in advance.

So I have spent the last few months, although its more been
like a year, really struggling to find what my place is in life, what my role
is.

I even wrote a long piece about being creative, and finding
a place – more specifically your own role in life rather than being the person
that other people want you to be. I still will probably post that at some
point, but my mind has really come to this point here.

Just over one year ago, I broke up with a long term girlfriend.
For those two years I devoted myself completely to her, and ultimately that turned me into a very closed
individual, scared of meeting new people, scared of pushing my own boundaries,
and was the basis for the reason why we broke up. I offered nothing new to her,
but more significantly, nothing new to myself. It affected my creativity and my
growth as a person, and, as a man who was 22 at the time, it was a very
destructive way to live life.

The past year or so has been a struggle to find out who I am
inside when I lost the only thing that meant anything to me. I have had to
reinvent Charles. However, I would always find myself procrastinating, not
following through with my dreams (because I like to jump at ideas that I have,
and following that for a short amount of time before jumping straight to the
next tangent). I found that I would plan inefficiently, and a big reason for
this is that I did not really understand what I wanted from life.

(Before I go on here is a short tangent for you to read…) It’s
difficult to know what you want from life in a society today that expects you
to be something, expects you to fill a role. We are stuck in a period of time
where you can ‘be’ anything you want to, but you are not anything until you are
successful. On top of that, there are countless different things that you can
be, and it’s hard to focus on just one – no wonder the cases of ADHD are
growing.

I truly took and step back and reflected:

Where am I now?

What do I want to be?

Where do I want to be in 10 years?

How do I want to live my life?

These are all questions that I asked myself (the above that
I mentioned is not an extensive list) that I thought would really help me
define my path in the future. And it did, though not in the way I thought it
would.

Where am I now? This question was a difficult thing to ask
in the sense that you cannot know all of your poor habits, but more than that,
it is difficult to reflect on yourself and recognise all that bad aspects of
who you are. I am very closed off, and find it very difficult to open myself up
to people. I have low confidence that makes me question everything I do. I
slouch. I am not happy, borderline depressed at times. I do not challenge
myself enough, and often back down when it gets tough.

What do I want to be? Where do I want to be in 10 years? These
were the toughest questions, because to look forward that far in your life needs
to take into account a number of different factors. You have to ask yourself
what you enjoy, and you also need to look at other people as role models for
your behaviour, which ultimately means that you will copy some of their traits.
And when I really thought about it, I couldn’t come up with an answer; well
apart from the usual shit like ‘more assertive’, ‘fit’, ‘funny’, etc. Although
I did want to change the world and be a voice. With all the books I have read (‘The
Outsider’ by Albert Camus, ‘On the Road’ by Jack Kerouac, ‘The Topic of Cancer’
by Henry Miller) and the philosophies that I have been exposed to, I have come
to the conclusion that I should just live life and not worry about the future.
Tomorrow might now come, and we are only guaranteed today, this moment that we
are sharing (fully aware that I am glossing over this, but it’s unimportant how
I reached that viewpoint). So I asked myself the next question…

How do I want to live my life? I thought about the above
philosophy. I thought about what life means to me. I thought about what fun is.
And after a lot of time thinking (though always coming up with a similar
answer), I came to this conclusion:

I want to live an adventure.

I want to go and a try a ton of different and new things. I
started writing out a bucket list of all the things that I want to do, from driving
across America (maybe an idea given to me by the aforementioned ‘On the Road’),
seeing the sights of Vietnam, live in a hostel, learning to salsa.

And then I had a thought: “that’s not an adventure”. That is
planned. Sure, there are things that I want to try, things I want to do, but
why am I thinking so much about it. Why not live just go live it? Why not just
book tickets to America and go travel (obviously I have to save the money up
first). Life does not have a plan for you, for me, for anyone. We will be born,
we will live, and we will die – and that is the only thing that we can be sure
of in life. Who knows how we will die, or when that point will come. In fact,
it could even be argued that life is all about preparing yourself for death,
but I’m not going to go there right now…

I will read books and articles that help me learn. I will
watch movies that make me think. I will do things that make me laugh. I will
talk to as many people as I possibly can to learn from them.

And although none of this will be able to give me a definite
answer to the meaning of life, I will have some fucking fun living it. Why am I
trying to find an answer in a life that does not have one itself?

One thing is for sure, I do not want to be one of those
people that falls into a role in life, in work, and doesn’t enjoy it. I do not
want to be that man that works every day in their lives following the same old
painful routine, waiting for the weekend to come, and for the day to end.

I’m going to live an adventure.

And I’m going to share it with you – all the troubles I encounter,
the old routines that I fall back on, and hopefully, all the fun that I have on
the way.

Monday, 20 June 2016

It's been a while since I've posted a new installment of my novel, however, it's not because I've stopped writing. I've noticed that my last few entries have had a number of spelling and grammatical errors, as well as having a few narrative issues that might need to be rewritten.

I want to put on the brakes, so that I can check the engine.

So whilst I'm still working on it offline, it'll be a little while yet before I start to post additional chapters.

I've also stopped posting because I've been considering alternative ways of presenting the novel online, whether that's on this blog or on Medium or another purpose built blog. So expect The Weight of Things Removed to be migrating to a new home in the near future. Ideally I want to use a website that makes it easier to display the novel without the need for numerous hyperlinks, also I've noticed that the font and text size of each passage can vary a fair bit and I want the presentation to be more consistent.

So TL;DR I am still writing and will start posting again in the near future, albeit on a different website.

Sunday, 12 June 2016

In this episode of The Milo and Moose Show, Milo and Moose discuss conspiracy theories from the plausible to the outright absurd.

They chat about some of the stranger and more terrifying conspiracies from the Cold War (Operation Northwards deserves an episode all to itself), as well as whether 9/11 was an inside job or not among other popular theories floating around the web.

They also take a cursory look at conspiracies as a whole, and discuss why people believe in them.

Do you have any conspiracies you would like to share? Or are there any glaring conspiracy theories we have missed? Do you know the secret to Hollywood immortality? Let us know!

Wednesday, 8 June 2016

In recent times Moose and I haven't spoken as much before recording as we used to, so our previews will start to vary in style. They'll be more like 'teasers' as they'll reveal our trains of thoughtrather than directly setting up the next episode. So the stuff mentioned below might not come up in our next episode, but it should still help to give you a feel for my thought process.Milo out.

Everybody loves a good conspiracy theory and you'd be hard pressed to find somebody who doesn't harbor some sort of irrational suspicion about the world around them. Whether it's that a secret society predetermines politics, that fossil fuel companies are secretly obstructing cold fusion research or that Barack Obama is a lizard-man we all have our beliefs.

Please don't watch this video, I'm only linking it so I can use the pic

There are so many to list, from the variety of 9/11 theories suspecting that it was an inside job, to the various theories about who really killed JFK, every major event is open to many interpretations. The thing I find most fascinating about them is that many of the one's that appear the most insane, are often only poorly articulated versions of genuinely plausible ones. For instance this talk by Larry Lessigsuggests that the most powerful nation on earth is dominated by an invisible group of obscenely wealthy people, and many students, extremists and social outcasts feel the same way.

Same fears, same opinions but different presentations, and that's what I find most fascinating about conspiracies theories. You can always find a way to make them plausible, and I'd be lying if I claimed that I never seriously considered that Tupac might still be alive.

The best things about conspiracy theories is that they are very hard to prove wrong, and very easy to believe in. I defy you to watch one illuminati video or 9/11 cover up documentary without, even for a second, feeling a sensation that can only be described as: weed-induced wonder.Oh and while this has been very American-centric, it's simply because your seekers of truth tend to be "louder" than ours. I'm looking at you Princess "it was an assassination" Diana theorists....

Our next episode is due to hit our RSS feed on Sunday 12th June.

P.P.S. A note to the illuminati: please don't hurt us. Think of this episode as our way of helping you to continue hiding in plain sight.

Tuesday, 31 May 2016

This is a short essay about the strangest stereotype in fiction, that being the fact that homeless people are all apparently extremely well connected and have secret talents and powers, and why it should be avoided by creators

I hate to break it to you but the
homeless have been conning you this whole time, you see despite their ill-fitting
clothes, poor hygiene and general lack of housing they are actually the ears
and eyes of the city. In fact you could argue that the homeless and their “Homeless
Leagues” runs the city.

This is, of course, absolute
bullshit, but it’s an oddly persistent stereotype I’ve seen cropping up again and
again, from video games such as the Elder Scrolls series and the Yakuza series,
to Korean dramas like ‘Last’, schlocky action movies like ‘The Quest’ and many
novels in the Charles Dickens tradition. Ultimately the homeless are
represented as either belonging to some sort of network of other homeless
people, having any number of secret or underappreciated skills, or simply
living a life not too dissimilar from slightly abstemious working class people.
For instance, in Oblivion and Skyrim (two games in the Elder Scrolls series)
information gathering often starts with speaking to the homeless, as it does in
many other fantasy games and novels. In ‘Last’ it is revealed that there is a
hierarchy of criminals built from the homeless up, with a $30 million cache belonging to the man at the
top. In both ‘The Quest’ and ‘Oliver Twist’ you have a motley crew of ragamuffins
and street urchins led by a dangerous and charismatic leader (albeit in the
former that leader is the hero, and in the latter the villain).

I believe that this stereotype exists
for two reasons: (1) because of a narrative need (2) because of a lack of
exposure and awareness about homelessness.

The first reason is easy to
tackle because it is the same reason why many spousal characters are dull and why
many children’s TV show heroes are either orphans or on a journey. When you
create a story you have a persistent need to explain away real life whilst simultaneously
borrowing from it; let me clarify this with a few examples. If I’m reading a
book with a 28 years old protagonist I’m going to be constantly thinking about
his romantic life until it has been explained, because in real life emotional,
sexual and financial needs make relationships an increasing necessity as you
get older. So whether it’s important to the story or not, we need to know what
recourse this man has if he is either lonely, horny or broke. In this same way
if we want to believe that our 11 years old hero is really on a mission to save the world, we need a quick and easy reason
to explain why her mother hasn’t yet called the police when she is missing for
months at a time. To return to our focus, then, another problem that occurs in
all genres of art is that of information gathering i.e. how does our protagonist
know what they know, when we need them to know it? The homeless present an easy
solution to this dilemma especially in the fantasy genre where a precedent has
already been set, moreover they have no responsibilities that would inhibit
their ability to appear and disappear as the needs of the narrative changes. Furthermore,
in a story where you need your protagonist to “go underground”, the homeless
are a fantastic option to contextualize this part of the story. This also helps
to explain why they frequently have “networks” and secret talents, because you
need somebody to give your hero the means to return to their struggle. In real
life when most people go underground they become homeless, and who wants to read
about homeless people? Am I right?

That last sentence leads us onto
the second reason for this stereotype and that is a lack of awareness about the
homeless on behalf of the creator and their audience. Many people still look
upon the homeless as ultimately being a nuisance who have brought trouble on
themselves. They are alcoholics, drug addicts and criminals who are just as
likely to rob you as spend your “donation” on plastic bottle booze. The reality
is far bleaker, as across the world the homeless are more likely to be victims
of crime than they are to be the perpetrators. I think that some successful
people have a habit of believing that you are the sole engineer of your own success,
and so if you are unsuccessful it is your fault for failing. The problem with this
assumption, however, is most obvious when it comes to financial success. Wealth
is only one indicator of success and one that hinges as much on your upbringing
as it does on any specific skills you may or may not have. To illustrate my
point let’s look at the many artists whose paintings sell for millions but whom
died penniless and broken. What about the countless number of legendary boxers
who were incredibly accomplished sportsman but often found themselves bankrupt?
On the flip side let’s look at Donald Trump a man whose business successes are
few and whose “successes” have more to do with his last name and hair than they
do with his fiscal acumen. The point being that you cannot readily assume
that the homeless are the sole architects of their poverty, as you are not the
sole architect of your successes.

People in general seem to be
unsettled by the hardship of strangers, it’s perhaps then no wonder that I can
name more overseas relief charities than domestic ones. People oversees aren’t
strangers they are less than that, they’re characters much like the homeless
people in our games and films. People on our streets though are the worst kind
of strangers, they are people who could become acquaintances and then
dependents. We don’t, however, feel this same uneasiness around teachers,
doctors or accountants; we don’t feel this uneasiness around strangers who
give, only strangers who ask. Hardship is contagious, it doesn’t keep to one
person it spreads whether that be through guilt, charity or mutual hardship. So
in response to this we ignore the hardship completely and attempt to pretend
like it doesn’t even exist. In the 21st Century, however, this is an
impossible task because we are all too informed to feign ignorance.

This is especially true of
creators because we actually have a need to understand our world in order to
create plausible fictions and worthwhile aesthetic treatments. We cannot
pretend as though “The Homeless League” is an acceptable stereotype to propagate,
because it is so opposed to reality as to make it immersion breaking. This isn’t
an attempt to say that you have to politicize your work or address social ills,
whether you are sympathetic to homeless people or not, but that you have to
realise that you cannot oversimplify their plight. To do so is little more than
intellectual laziness and displays a lack of pride in one’s work. Work harder
to create new fictions based on this world, do not instead borrow from older
fictions in order to save yourself a bit of effort.

Afterward: After writing this it occurred to me that saying nothing to directly benefit the homeless would be a severe oversight. Check out Passage for information on how you can help out at a homeless kitchen, or Shelter who are probably the biggest charity for the homeless in England.